Match Thoughts
A pretty good match. It felt kind of short, but I liked it. Shota Umino wanted to start the match, but TAKA and Taichi didn’t take him seriously. Neither wanted to start against Umino, so Umino rushed them both and pulled Taichi into the ring to start the match. Shota showed a lot of aggression, but he quickly lost control of the match to Suzuki Gun. Dragon Lee would eventually get into the ring and quicken the pace considerably, but Umino, even though he had a remarkable showing, was still the weak link. This was a good opener.

Match Thoughts
Good match. In what seems like a theme tonight, Hirai Kawato started the match by attacking Hiromu Takahashi before the bell. Kawato did better than Umino did in his match, even getting a tag from Robinson late in the match and standing up to EVIL. For a little while anyway. I liked the action in this one. It was pretty fast paced most of the time, and everyone had some nice moments in the ring before it broke down to everyone fighting everywhere.

Match Thoughts
Good match. It was basically a tornado tag big man match. Finlay started the match for his team against Takahashi, but it quickly turned into everyone fighting everywhere for most of the rest of the match. As expected, there were some big, strong moves and a decent amount of teamwork between War Machine and Roa & Tonga. The commentary helped as well, making the finish more exciting than it might have been otherwise.

Match Thoughts
Very good match. The intrigue here was definitely seeing Okada and Omega in the ring together, and though they delayed their interaction, they did have a good amount of time interacting with each other. Scurll and Ospreay also had a little rivalry going in in this match which served a good subplot. The action was very good here and seemed to come in waves. It was difficult to pick a winner right up until the end. This probably could have been the main event for the night, though it’ll be interesting to see if KUSHIDA and Taguchi can top it.

Match Thoughts
Good match. El Desperado started being cheap and dirty early by attacking Tiger Mask’s leg as he was entering the ring. El Desperado took the fight to the floor and continued to work over Tiger’s leg while he threw him into and attacked him with chairs. Tiger Mask was in a bad way, but somehow he managed to stay into the match and mount a comeback. This was a nice combination of very cheap tactics versus the resilient good guy. The finish was questionable since the pin was counted while one guy had touched the ropes, but it was still an good match overall.

Ring Area
After the match, Tiger Mask pulls El Desperado back into the ring. Tiger grabs Desperado by the mask and motions as if he’s going to tear it off. Tiger looks to the crowd (who are giving him support), but ultimately decides not to rip Desperado’s mask.

Match Thoughts
Another good match. Kanemaru ambushed BUSHI while he was still making his way down the aisle before the match. With TAKA helping him, Kanemaru beat up BUSHI all through the crowd, ending up on the risers towards the back of the hall. BUSHI turned the tables by diving onto Kanemaru and TAKA from the top of one of the entrances, but back in the ring Kanemaru still maintained control for most of the match. This was another match where BUSHI fought like a babyface, and it was quite good.

Match Thoughts
Very good match. Volador can be kind of a jerk sometimes, and I was really pulling for ACH in this one. Volador took the lead early, but ACH turned everything around with a series of dives through the ropes to the floor. It seemed to be ACH’s match after that, but Volador kept fighting and hitting moves here and there. It didn’t help that ACH hurt his ribs early in the match (but it did make the match more interesting and tense). The finish was very good. Partly because I was invested in who won, but also because it was just a well done match.

Match Thoughts
Great match! KUSHIDA seemed supremely confident in his ability to out-wrestle Taguchi, so he took it to the mat early in the match. KUSHIDA did outshine Taguchi as far as technical ability goes, but Taguchi countered KUSHIDA’s mat skill with a ton of heart and managed to counter a lot of holds and put on some of his own. KUSHIDA and Taguchi both looked for submission victories throughout the match and both used each other’s moves and submissions multiple times. The match built to a really great climax so even if I wasn’t pulling for KUSHIDA (which I was), it still would have been a highly entertaining and tense match.

Show Impressions
I really liked this show. The addition of a few new faces made it feel fresh, and the matches were all very good. If I had to nitpick anything, I would say that it became very obvious early on that Block B was heading for an eight way tie tonight as far as the rankings go. That made the winners, especially of the third and fourth tournament matches, fairly easy to predict. But other than that, I think this was a very solid show.

Match of the NightKUSHIDA vs Ryusuke Taguchi
I don’t know if he’ll win the whole thing, but for me, KUSHIDA is the standout of the tournament so far. His matches are the most memorable for me. Taguchi has been a big surprise for me though. I never would have though a wrestler whose offense is centered around his butt would be a viable contender, but he is. Tonight’s match didn’t go heavily into the comedy or excessive hip attacks though, so that probably helped his believability a lot for me.